Religious Education
The latest edition of Private Eye highlights an important issue about 'book burning' at the controversial Al-Madinah school in Derby - which other news organisations seem to have ignored.
The school has now been closed down, but I don't understand how it got approval to start up in the first place - when the teaching of scientific subjects like evolution and Darwinism could be banned by the schools governors.
What a terrible waste of public money.
Private Eye
What a shame education chiefs now promising a swift resolution to the problems at the "dysfunctional" Al-Madinah Islamic school in Derby didm;t read the school's first prospectus - which spelt out its controversial take on education.
"In each and every department, all efforts will be geared towards ensuring the books and resources conform to the teachings of Islam," it said.
"Sensitive, inaccurate or potentially blasphemous material will be censored or completely removed ...Darwinism, for example."
As for boys and girls being forced to eat lunch separately (among the manny faults found by Oftsed), the prospectus made clear that they would always be separated not only for lunch but also for PE, prayers, religious assemblies and Islamic studies.
Music would never be taught as part of the curriculum. It might be used only as a teaching aid for younger children only, and certainly not for "entertainment and amusement".
Of course that prospectus has now been withdrawn, he offending passages removed, and a new one is available online.
"For me the test is how quickly you deal with failure," said education secretary Michael Gove after Ofsted published its damning report into the faith school. Given that concerns about the school go back as far as 2012, it is a test he has evidently flunked.
